Crispy pork belly for christmas

Christmas is upon us. All the Christmas classics on the radio. Neighbors risk bone fractures, long-term sick leave and electroshock in the battle over who manages to put up the most Christmas lights on their house this year as well! This always gets the christmas spirit runing, but it is in the kitchen and in the barbecue shack the real Christmas spirit comes from. Yes, the food! At my house, it is the classic Norwegian Christmas pork belly that is served on Christmas Eve, and it is of course cooked on the grill. You can of course use a regular oven for this recipe as well.

What you need:

Christmas rub:

Slice the skin
To get a nice and crispy pork belly, you need to square the skin. The skin of the pig is quite tough and hard, so you have to use a sharp knife for this. I use a wallpaper knife for this purpose (yes, I have my own wallpaper knife for cooking purposes) try to make the squares the same size all over the skin. Cut all the way through the skin and down into the fat. Lift the pork belly up from the underside so that the skin squares bend slightly apart. Clean silver skin and rough parts from the pork belly before tapping it dry with some kitchen paper. Rub the skin side with a generous amount of coarse salt. Make sure to get the salt well down in the cracks. Sprinkle with rub over the rest of the pork belly, on all sides. Leave the pork belly on a rack in the fridge for at least one day, preferably 2 with the skin side down. Cover with plastic.

Steam is important
Another important part of the process of getting that crispy crust is to steam it before cooking or grilling the pork belly. lubricate a pan with a little butter, and pour water so that it barely covers the bottom. At the next step, the scholars argue about steaming the pork belly with the skin up or down, but I choose to steam mine with the skin down. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil and place the pan in the oven at 230 degrees C for about 30 minutes. You can also do this on the grill, but you add zero flavor from the grill as long as the meat is covered in the pan. And besides, it is very nice to fire up the grill at the same time as the steaming is doing its magic.

Time and Temp
The next step is to take the pork belly out of the oven, turn it so that the skin is pointing up, and place the pork belly on a rack over a pan, or in a suitable pn with a built in rack. You can use the aluminum foil from the steaming further by packing it lightly together to a ball and place under the pork belly so that it gets a small “humpback” so rendered fat flows more easily away from the skin during the cook. Cut onion, celery and carrot into coarse pieces to put in the pan, together with about 5dl water and broth/stock (Finished broth can also be used). Put the pork belly back in the oven on the bottom rack at 230 degrees C for 30 minutes. You can of course do this step on the grill as well, but since the oven is already set at 230 degrees and the rest of the cooking process should be at much lower temperatures, I leave it in the oven for this step as well. After 30 minutes, Take the Pork belly and the pan out of the oven, and move these to the grill, which should have a temperature of about 150-160 degrees C(indirect heat) for about 2 hours. You can also choose a lower cooking temperature here if you have plenty of time and want more taste of smoke and grill. The meat is ready when the core temperature is at 75 degrees C.

Crispy crust
When the pork belly is just under the desired core temperature, I set the oven at 240 degrees C with the grill element on. It is easier to have control of the crust when you can actually see the crust. Take the pan with vegetables and pork belly of the grill. The drippings and water of the pan can now be strained and be used for making delicious gravy. Put the pork belly skin side up at the bottom groove in the oven. Pay attention, the skin goes from popped and crispy to cremated in a very short time! Most ovens cook with uneven heat, this means that your skin will most likely be finished faster on one of the sides. If parts of the skin are popped, you can place some aluminum foil over the finished area, and turn the pork belly so that the skin get evenly cooked. When you are happy with the crust, take the pork belly out of the oven and let it rest a bit while you finish the accessories. I usually serve pork belly with pork patties (medister cakes), gravy, Christmas sausages, potatoes, the vegetables from the pan, red cabbage and sauerkraut.